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If you’re a college student, you’ve likely heard from an advisor or mentor that you should complete an internship during your academic career. It can be easy to brush off this advice, but completing an internship is truly one of the best things you can do for your future career. Here are five reasons why it’s so important to complete an internship, and why your future self will thank you for it.
Potential Full-Time Conversion
Some companies hire their entry-level talent straight from their internship cohort. We see this in the Vault Internship Rankings, where we rank the top firms with the best post-program employment prospects. Going straight from your internship to your entry-level role, or at least knowing you have a full-time role secured for after graduation, means that you get to bypass the job search after graduation. This security and peace of mind in knowing what your next chapter looks like can be incredibly helpful, especially when the job market is competitive.
Competitive Edge
If you don’t secure a full-time role from your internship, or if you decline the offer because the company isn’t for you, you still have a competitive edge when searching for that entry-level position. Employers find internship experience to be an important factor during the hiring process, and one study from NACE found that 55 percent of students who completed an internship had a job offer before they even graduated. Another source found that students who have an internship on their resume are nearly 23 percent more likely to secure a full-time role within six months of graduation. With both of these reports in mind, it can’t be ignored just how much having internship experience improves your job prospects after college.
Evidence of Skills
When companies are searching for entry-level talent, an increased emphasis is being placed on a candidate’s skills. With this skills-based hiring on the rise, an internship experience can both grow your skills and give your existing skills some credibility. Internships are great ways to grow industry-specific skills and the soft skills necessary for a professional workplace. It’s one thing to have strong communication skills, but it’s another to have honed these skills through workplace experience such as drafting emails and communicating with clients. This workplace experience acts as evidence of your skills. Knowing that you’ve utilized and grown these skills in a professional setting can make you stand out as a candidate.
Networking Exposure
While the experience you gain from an internship is invaluable, so is the networking exposure you get. Networking during your internship is crucial and can lead to lifelong connections with other staff and senior leadership. It’s hard to find other environments during your college career where a plethora of industry professionals will be together for an extended amount of time and be so willing to talk with you. Without this exposure, a lot of your networking will have to be with professors or cold-emailing professionals. These methods can still lead to great connections, but they still do not compare to the amount of networking you can do during an internship.
Salary Prospects
Internship experience makes you a more valuable employee, which in turn means companies are willing to invest more into you. Students who completed an internship tend to have starting salaries 10 to 20 percent higher than their peers without internship experience. This means internships, literally, pay off. Your starting salary will also be used whenever you get a merit increase. Most annual increases are a percentage of your salary, such as a 3 percent increase, which means a higher salary equals a higher raise. Having a higher starting salary will result in higher compensation throughout your career.
It can’t be overstated just how important internship experience can be for your future career. Check out the Vault Internship Rankings to see which program can be the best fit for you.
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